Unfestive
by jessicalange
Summary: Witches celebrate Christmas too, you know. Holiday cheer? Not quite. holiday fic; mainly cordelia & fiona.


Cordelia's on the top rung of a ladder, twining lights around and around the tall tree. She stands on her tiptoes next to put the star on the top, and Fiona calls sharply from below her, taking a long sip of the glass of eggnog in her hand. Cordelia knows better than to think it's more eggnog than an unhealthy amount of bourbon. "You're going to fall flat on your ass, 'Delia."

Cordelia rolls her eyes towards the ceiling. She's very _close_ to the ceiling because, like every year that has gone by, Spalding insists on doing something extravagant; like finding the largest and tallest tree, so tall that the top brushes against the white ceiling. She doesn't even know how he's managed to find something so huge, much less how he even got it through the door. But no one decides to ask. After all, Spalding probably has enough secrets to bury them all alive, and one of those secrets, she supposes, is how he's capable of dragging a gigantic tree into the academy.

She has no idea how they're going to get it_ out_, but that's a thing for a later time.

"I _have_ done this before, Mother," she calls back over the familiar sound of Queenie and Madison fighting in the kitchen. Fiona's only reply is a sardonic snort. She'd love to drop an ornament right on her mother's head, but knowing her mother, she wouldn't be surprised if the woman pushed the ladder over.

By the time she's climbed down the latter and gone into the kitchen to see what all the yelling is about, they're still screaming at eachother, but it's escalated to a near unbearable volume and Queenie has grabbed a knife straight out of Spalding's hands and is holding it to her throat. The knife he _had_ been using to carve the ham. He stands by helplessly with a pitiable look on his face. It would be amusing if one of her students hadn't been threatening to slaughter the other.

Madison is shrieking something incoherently. Nan's glass of eggnog rises up from the table and is thrown at Queenie's head, full-force, although the glass doesn't make impact with her face. Purposefully, Cordelia knows, because now the human voodoo doll has eggnog-soaked hair. The clairvoyant covers her ears with both hands.

"Girls!" Cordelia shouts over their screams. It does nothing. Of _course_ it doesn't; but before she has time to pry them apart from eachother, enters Fiona. The Supreme flicks her hand, and Cordelia doesn't have time to stop her before Queenie and Madison are yanked apart by an invisible force and slam into opposite walls. They know immediately to quiet down, because no one can make someone fall silent like Fiona can. Everyone in the room has learned that at least once; been witness to her power at least twice.

Fiona tosses her a glance; a disappointed one accompanied by an eyeroll that makes Cordelia's stomach churn. "Can't you do _anything_ without me, Delia?"

She would say she had it under control, but everyone knows she really hadn't. After all, there's only one person that can stop Queenie and Madison and that certainly isn't her.

"Idiots," Fiona spits, but this time it's not at her; it's at them. She lets them go, and they look ridiculous, with Madison's hair askew and Queenie's own dripping with eggnog. "It's Christmas. Learn to get along with eachother or I'm building you both a doghouse and locking you outside in it." Strangely enough, Cordelia believes her. Perhaps it's not so strange, because when Fiona makes a threat, everyone knows she means it. "And if you can't get along with eachother, at least pretend to. And for Christ's sake, stop trying to kill eachother. You're _sister witches_, like it or not."

While Fiona continues with one of her infamous rants (it includes a lot of threats, sharp-tongued words punctuated by a sip or two of eggnog before she goes on, and Madison calling her a stupid hag once before learning better of it when she slams into the wall again. Cordelia knows when to stop one of those rants and when to not; and she doesn't bother trying this time), Zoe enters alongside Myrtle Snow. The sight of the woman she's considered her aunt for such a long time makes her smile.

Fiona stops talking by the time Cordelia's pulled the Head of the Council into a hug. She breaks the moment by slamming her glass down on the kitchen table. "What is _she_ doing here?" She says the word _she_ with a kind of sharpness that does not go unnoticed.

Cordelia sighs and prepares herself for the brunt of her mother's anger. "I invited her, mother. Remember; 'sister witches, whether you like it or not'." She uses her mother's own words against her, and out of the corner of her eye she can see the corner of Myrtle's mouth twitch, her eyes glimmering with a kind of pride beyond the frames of her glasses. But all she can focus on is her mother, who looks—

"Uh oh, bitch's about to explode," Madison mutters from the corner.

Well, Cordelia had gone for _fuming_, but - that's a far more accurate description.

But her mother doesn't explode. In fact, she doesn't say anything at all; her gaze is enough, cutting Cordelia to the core; she picks up her glass, and downs it in a single gulp before storming out, shoving past Myrtle hard enough to knock her into the wall. They're all very silent for a long moment, and then the door slams shut, announcing Fiona's exit and shaking the walls.

"Well, merry _fucking_ Christmas," the blonde star smirks from behind the table. "Get me some eggnog, Jeeves."

Cordelia sighs and puts a hand on Myrtle's arm briefly before retracting it. "I'm going to go and try to bring her back before she gets in a cab to leave to some bar. Feel free to begin eating without me."

Myrtle looks a little sympathetic, like she knows what's going to be the result of Cordelia's attempted conversation with her mother. They all know Fiona will just end up leaving anyway, and it will be another Christmas without her. But it's _Christmas_. Cordelia has to try, doesn't she?

To her surprise, Fiona's not calling a cab when she gets outside. She's sitting cross-legged on the porch, leaning forward and smoking a cigarette. Cordelia's always hated the smell of them; a thick, acrid smell that isn't extinguished even when her mother stubs out the cigarette on a porch step. It hangs in the air for what seems like hours afterwards. But she's never been able to stop her mother from breathing wafts of smoke from her mouth into her face, so — she's stopped trying a long time ago.

"I didn't mean to upset you, mother," Cordelia says. That's a lie; she meant for every word to upset Fiona, like always — even on the holidays they can't have a normal, friendly relationship, but she's certainly regretting it now.

Fiona looks at her with a raised brow, turning her head slightly to breathe out the toxic smoke. "Right," she drawls dismissively, tone skeptical. Cordelia finds herself unable to argue against that. She's not the worst liar, but in front of her mother such a skill crumbles to dust.

It's annoying, really.

"It's just for one night, Fiona," she says, and the use of her full, real name catches her mother's attention. Good. "Myrtle will only be here for a few hours. She told me so herself. I just want a Christmas where no one's fighting or threatening to kill eachother—" —well, that's certainly worked out well, hasn't it? Then again, Queenie and Madison fight and threaten to kill eachother almost every day of the week.

"—and that includes you, whether you like it or not."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't brought that bitch into the picture, I'd be just fine celebrating your idiotic idea of a _happy_ Christmas."

Her words don't sting. They're meant to; her words are biting and cruel and venomous, but Cordelia's developed a sort of immunity to such things. Everything her mother says rolls right off of her, as long as it doesn't include the word 'infertility'. And Fiona's learned just as well not to use that flaw of Cordelia's against her. She isn't that cruel.

"Myrtle doesn't have a family, mother. We—" Fiona shoots her a glare that shuts her up immediately; her acidic stare is the kind of one that says 'if you finish that sentence, I'll tear your throat out with my teeth'. "I'm the only family she has," she finishes lamely. Fiona's gaze doesn't lighten any.

"How sweet," Fiona sneers, exhaling a circle of smoke directly into Cordelia's face. The headmistress rolls her eyes at the immature action, looking away.

"Come on," she encourages, standing. Fiona stubs out her cigarette but doesn't move, looking up at her as if daring her to do something.

Cordelia sighs, and her shoulders heave with the movement. "Please?" she lowers herself to asking, but Fiona doesn't seem convinced. When is she ever, really? "Just for an hour, and then if you don't want to stay anymore you don't have to." It's a promise, and she knows Fiona can tell, because something in her face changes. It's not apologetic, or kind, but it's somewhat — well, it's _something_.

"If that gaudy red slut you call Auntie even—"

"—looks your way or tries to talk to you, you'll splatter her innards on the walls. I know, mother. Come on." Cordelia extends her hand, and after a moment, Fiona very reluctantly takes it, pulling herself up with her fingers tight around Cordelia's wrist. She brushes her dress off and follows her daughter inside. When they return to the kitchen, everything's much calmer, and the girls are taling with eachother, voices overlapping voices. Madison's by the sink with Spalding, shoving a santa hat on his head despite his clear protests. She snickers. "You make a shit Santa Claus, Jeeves," she drawls smoothly, snagging the hat from his head. He looks unbelievably relieved that he's free from her torment as the star returns to her seat next to Zoe.

Nan, on the other end of the table, is busy not-so-stealthily sneaking pieces of ham to Isis, Cordelia's cat, underneath the table. But everyone falls completely silent when they see them re-enter the room; Madison mumbles _shit_ under her breath.

Isis meows softly and the Supreme shoots them her ever-impressive, _never_ any less frightening glare, and the moment breaks.

Cordelia takes a seat at the head of the table; Fiona takes the one right next to her. Cordelia notices her students' gazes, fixated on Fiona, who busies herself with grabbing the jug of eggnog in the center of the table and pouring another glass for herself, but as to not earn her hatred they continue speaking amongst themselves. There's Spalding, who looks at her mother so adoringly when he fills her plate with food that it makes her a little nauseous — but he gets something like a smile in return for his efforts, and he looks as if he's just won an award.

Fiona offers that same sort-of-smile to her from beside her, and Cordelia's suddenly quite certain that, out of all thirty-seven Christmases she's witnessed, this is the best one that she's ever had.


End file.
